Tavern
by Elisabeth Harker
Summary: Amy wasn't the only person that Laurie met in Europe, while he was pining for Jo.   Mild Fred Vaughn/Laurie slash, with Jo/Laurie undertones.


Notes: This was written as a yuletide story for willowbell, who requested Jo/Laurie pining or Laurie/Fred slash. This story combines both, and a bit of drunken revelry. Written under the assumption that he ran more wild in Europe than any of the Marches were aware of. Only three more stories left on my quest to write every yuletide Little Women prompt. :)

*.*.*

Laurie hated Paris. The grand old buildings felt like scene settings in at the playhouse that he sometimes used to bring Jo to - brilliant on the outside, brilliant within as one painted background gave way to another, but utterly, utterly empty.

He hated Paris. He hated the ostentatious cafes, the cobbled streets, the ridiculous dresses that the girls wore to the ballets and the opera houses. He hated the lazy, idle feeling of everything, though he wasn't sure if it emanated from the city or his own heart. He wanted to lose himself to art and music, but he didn't have the energy for it, so he began to lose himself in less noble pursuits.

As a boy, he remembered, he'd loved Paris.

The wine, at least, was still nice.

It was a cool evening, and he was sitting in a tavern surrounded by other lost men and women. The room consisted of about a dozen wooden tables, each with four or five chairs. Somebody had knocked over the chair across from Laurie while stumbling past, and nobody had thought to pick it up. Three burly men with stubbled faces were playing billiards in a corner of the room, and a woman was pretending to be taught how to play, but Laurie could guess easily enough that it was another kind of game she was after. The candles, placed sparsely throughout the room, seemed to deepen the shadows, and nobody in particular tended them - when one burnt out, the stub was left to cool, and a new one was not brought out in its place.

Laurie kept to his own table and his own glass.

He was thinking about Jo, which wasn't in itself unusual. What was unusual was that he'd received a letter that day from Meg, describing in a few friendly words the state of her household and Brooke's employment, and saying that Jo had taken Beth to the seashore, in hopes that it would improve the dear girl's health. Laurie knew that he should be thankful to Meg for sparing a moment to think of him, grateful that the Marches on the whole were well, or else anxious for Beth, but he could only feel anger and self-pity that Jo hadn't seen fit to send him anything herself.

Perhaps that was why he was where he was that night. He felt as if he had too many emotions, and not nearly enough ways in which to give vent to them.

Two people approached his table in the space of no more than fifteen minutes. The first was a stick thin young woman wearing silk and too much rouge. She introduced herself as Annette and took his hands when she sat down across from him without asking for permission first. Her fingers were cold and insinuating.

The second person was more of a surprise, and even less welcome at first.

If he had simply walked by, Laurie might not have recognized him, for the last time he had seen Fred Vaughn had been at Camp Laurence, and he had not had a moustache back then. The sight of Laurie must have caught Fred off guard though, for he took a few steps back after walking by him quite quickly at first, and he did a double take.

"Fred!" Laurie said. He stood up a little too quickly and freed his hand from Annette's, who crossed her arms, with a sour expression. Laurie ran a hand through his hair. The wine had made him dizzy, something he hadn't noticed when he was sitting down.

A look crossed Fred's face at once as if he was not entirely pleased to see Laurie, and it was understandable, for this tavern was the last place that anyone would want to be recognized.

"Laurie…" Fred said, but then he shook his head, and sighed as if amused by the absurdity of it all. "Good to see you, old chap. Why didn't you tell me you were about the city? I'd have found a more respectable place to meet you, but never mind! The food here is unbeatably good."

Laurie hadn't been aware that there _was_ food. Just to prove a point, Fred treated him to the toughest steak and the most watery onion soup that Laurie had ever tasted. Not one to be outdone in generosity, Laurie treated Fred to a pint of good English ale, and then another.

Annette drifted away, and Laurie and Fred got to talking about Amy.

"Could say I owe you for writing me to tell me that she was in London all those months ago," Fred said. "I followed her to Paris, and then Heidelberg, but then Frank up and fell ill and I needed to go home. Bad timing that, and business being what it is, I haven't been able to return to her just yet."

"I've been meaning to see Amy myself," said Laurie, though it was only a half truth. He had been wanting to see Amy, but he could not but wonder if her familiar face would leave the same sting as Meg's letter had. Worse, he was afraid that she would look into his eyes and know just what he had been doing since coming to Europe.

"She's mentioned you," Fred said, twirling his moustache with one finger. Laurie had to keep himself from laughing - it was a very funny habit for his old friend to have picked up.

"Did she give me a good report," Laurie asked.

"Amy is an angel. She only ever has good things to say about anybody."

"You seem fond of her," Laurie said.

"I am," Fred said softly, but something seemed wrong. He sat very straight, and held his glass in both hands. Looking at him now Laurie would say that he was too proper and stiff for Amy, yet if he had heard about their relationship before seeing him, he would have guessed him too much a firebrand for her to endure. He couldn't see a trace of the boy who used to cheat at cricket, refuse to read anything but pirate books, and raucously defend England whether the country had been insulted or not.

"She's very graceful," Laurie said, for his empty glass (Fred refilled it before he could finish his sentence) made that seem like a very insightful comment.

"That she is!"

"She has four sisters," Laurie said, holding up four fingers for emphasis.

"Thought she had three?"

"Yes, she has three, but with Amy that makes four all together."

Fred nodded, then grasped Laurie's arm excitedly, "Looks like we may be brother-in-laws! If I marry Amy, and you -"

"I'm not going to marry Jo," Laurie said, putting down his glass with a loud thump.

"Ah. Can't say I blame you, but Amy said…"

"Amy doesn't always know what she's talking about."

"Ah."

The silence that followed was a little too awkward. Fred left for a minute, then came back with some brandy in a glass bottle. He poured some for Laurie, and then for himself.

"Too Amy!" Fred toasted.

"Too Amy!" Laurie echoed.

Laurie refilled their glasses.

"To Beth!" Shouted Fred.

"To Beth!"

This time it was Fred's turn to pour the brandy.

"To the governess!" Said Fred.

"To _Meg_." Laurie corrected.

This called for a fifth toast, in which both men used Meg's name, as was proper and right, and a sixth after Laurie informed Fred that it would be best to call her Margaret Brooke.

Fred's final and loudest toast was to the "big hat". Laurie did not try to correct him or even repeat what he was saying, but took a final swig of his drink.

"There are all together too many March women," said Fred.

"Takes a regular Solomon to understand them," said Laurie.

They left the bar hand in had, something that two American men (or an American man and a British man, as the case was) would never do, but was considered perfectly chummy in France.

(Laurie wasn't altogether sure, what he thought of Paris. )

It was pitch black outside, the moon and the stars obscured by clouds. It was colder and more windy than Laurie remembered it being.

The roads were thin and winding, and the two of them had escaped from the thrall of people before the realized just what they were doing.

Fred kissed Laurie lightly on the cheek.

"That's very French of you," Laurie said.

They stood that way for a minute. Laurie could feel Fred's breath against the side of his face. He wouldn't be sure, in the morning, exactly whose fault it was that their lips touched, but that was what happened next.

Laurie had kissed several people in his life - a fact that he would never admit to any of the Marches - but kissing a man was something entirely different from kissing a girl. Fred's mouth was harder and dryer, and his whiskers were rough against Laurie's face. Laurie's hands threaded through Fred's hair, and Fred's hands went up under the white linen of his shirt.

Laurie jerked away, for his body had responded quickly and certainly, and he was sure that Fred had felt it, close as he was.

Fred's arms fell at his sides.

"I'm not sure if I love Amy," he said.

"I'm sure that I love Jo, but nothing I do will make her love me back."

Fred nodded, resigned.

"You're drunk. Want me to make sure you get home alright?"

Laurie shrugged. They turned to leave, and Fred stumbled, proving that he was no more sober than Laurie. Laurie had to take Fred's arm to keep him from falling.

Between the two of them, they had just enough wits about them to make it back to the main road without getting lost.

Fred hailed the first omnibus home, and it was twenty minutes before Laurie could find another. He fell asleep in the carriage to the steady sound of the horses' feet.

" 'ad an interest night, eh?" The driver said, when he woke Laurie up to make him pay and let him know he had arrived at his hotel.

Laurie nodded dazedly, and returned to his empty rooms.


End file.
